CNET First Look

Dell Inspiron 531s

The Dell Inspiron 531, the company's newest, small-scale Windows desktop, may not offer the most bang for the buck, but it does offer more options than the competition.

1:34 / May 21, 2008

Transcript

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>> Hi, I'm Rich Brown senior editor for CNET.com. Today we're going to talk about the Dell Inspiron 531S. So, this system is Dells basic new home desktop. It's pretty small not quite as big as a mid tower, but not really as small as a Mac mini. That means you can put this system pretty much anywhere and it has a fair amount of expandability too just not quite as much as you might have in a full size system. On the front side, there's the DVD burner behind this one door. And over on this side there's a media card reader complete with an integrated Bluetooth receiver. That makes the system as friendly towards other wireless devices as pretty much any other on the market right now. Inside the case, you can see this is still a fairly complete system. Right here you've got a dual cord A and D Athlon shift. Dell also has an Intel version of this system, but they're both about the same in terms of specks and performance. So over here there's one hard drive and there's actually room to add another and also there's two memory sticks as well as room for two more. There's one graphics card slot as well as three other standard slots. There's a firewall card in here now although because it's Dell you can figure it to a number of options including a TV tuner, wireless networking adaptor. Just remember that because this is a slim system they're gonna be half light cards which means they're not as powerful as their full sized versions. Over all we've found the system a little bit expensive for its [inaudible] parts. If you shop around you can probably get a better deal with [inaudible] from someone like emachines or another vender. Still though this is a slim PC and it also has a fair amount of expandability, more so than most others in its category. So, if you're looking to save a little space and maybe have some room to upgrade we recommend this system. So I'm Rich Brown this is the Dell Inspiron 531S.
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